


Their Eyes Were Looking for God

by NegansOtherWife



Series: Tumblr Requests [4]
Category: The Walking Dead & Related Fandoms, The Walking Dead (Comics), The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Drug Use, Explicit Language, F/M, Mental Instability, Torture, Violence, dark themes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-21
Updated: 2018-05-21
Packaged: 2019-05-09 20:33:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14723132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NegansOtherWife/pseuds/NegansOtherWife
Summary: "He doesn’t even remember what he did to us. He just left you there to suffer, to clean up his mess. Wouldn’t you want to make him suffer the exact same way she did?”





	Their Eyes Were Looking for God

**Author's Note:**

> Another Tumblr request! enjoy x
> 
> My Tumblr: https://negansaysyouearnwhatyoutake.tumblr.com

It’d been two days.

Two.

Days.

Since I’d first gotten a glimpse of him.

He’d arrived at night. Piled into the back of a pickup truck with some other stragglers.

He’d looked so happy. A stark contrast to how I’d seen him last. 

He didn’t deserve to be happy, not when I was hurting.

During offloading he’d caught my gaze, only for a moment, but it was enough. He didn’t remember me. That hurt the most. The moment my shift was over, I’d ran the entirety of the way back to my room and chopped at the strands of my hair until they’d barely brushed the bottom of my chin. 

That had been the beginning of everything. Like a cataclysmic reaction, it was inevitable.

And it was destined to destroy everything in its path. 

From whisperings on the factory floor, it was easy to pin down a back story. His name was Dane. Late twenties and looking for someone to vouch for him before Negan. He wanted to be a Savior. Perfect. 

“Hey, Dane.” A soft smile, just a little cleavage. That’s all it had taken. “I hear you’re looking for a character reference? They call me Pen.”

At one point he would have been what I’d considered long ago to be my type. Sharp gray eyes, dark locks that brushed shoulder length, and the air of mystery that enveloped him like a winter coat. “Pen?” 

“Penelope.”

I’d been a Savior for almost a year. Getting by Negan had been the easy part, he’d scrutinized me for a moment before giving the same utterance he gave new “mentors”: “He makes a mistake it’s your ass.”

Dane had left soon afterward. But not before wrapping me in a tight embrace under the sharp gaze of Negan, it’d been more uncomfortable then I’d initially estimated. Still, I’d cataloged the feeling. I’d need something to reference in the future. 

Negan’s question had caused me to linger, a hand on the doorknob and a head full of crippling guilt. “You cut your hair?”

“Huh?” It seemed like most days I could barely string a couple of sentences together. My brain space was needed for much more important things. It would take all of me to make sure peace would be restored. I needed peace and closure. This wasn’t just about her anymore, this was about me. As selfish as that sounded, it was the truth. I’d temporarily trade my sanity for just a taste of his blood.

“…liked it better long.”

“You can’t go through life without it changing you,” I say, although whether I’m talking about Dane or my hair I’m unsure. “But I’ll keep you in mind the next time I decide my appearance needs tuning.”

“You fucking him?” His eyes glance towards the corner of the room, tempting you to look that way before he pins you with a calculating stare.

“You want a turn?” My question catches him off guard. I can tell. 

I was supposed to be a lawyer once. My mother always said reading people was a rare gift. As if I should be so lucky, but I digress. Once you tempered your feelings it was easy to look past the emotional front that others constructed. It was the equivalent of a veil and I’d been born with a knife in my hand to pierce it.

“Have him ready by tomorrow. We leave at six. ” 

That was the first night I’d slept outside. As if I could stand to sleep in the same building as my sister’s killer. The less temptation the better. 

The first of many. 

I’d concocted my plan in the light of a dying fire several weeks later. For this to work, I needed to be patient. I needed the truth that adhered just beneath the surface of the Earth. So shallow, I’d trample it before I could even find it if I wasn’t careful. 

“You’re quiet, Pen,” Negan observes, as the two of us make a slow sweep of a three-story warehouse. “Out’a ink?” Funny. He’d given me that nickname my third day at the factory and it’d never disputed. 

“Don’t mistake my quiet for foolishness.” I distantly mumble. On top of looking for the designated materials that Negan had mandated for this trip, I had my own agenda to worry about. It didn’t make it any easier, seeing as Negan had specifically requested I shadow him for today.

He’s right, though. I was usually so cheerful. 

I’d finally been healing. 

Determination begins to burn in my veins. I’d set this straight then I could be happy again. 

“How’s the boyfriend?”

“Dane’s fine.” Even the word made me sick. He offers a hand, hoisting me over a toppled industrial shelf.

“Do you know what a conditional statement is?” I ask after a moment. The room that we’re in is dark. The oppressive shadows only give way to the beams of light that shine from the small flashlight in his hand. The quiet seems to make it worse.

“A conditional…what?” He stops mid-trek, turning so that the flashlight shines into my eyes. 

“A conditional statement, I had to study it a lot for the LSAT,” At his questioning gaze, you clarify, “It’s a test to get into law school.”

“I used to teach at a high school. I know what the LSAT is.” He huffs. “What the fuck does a conditional statement have to do with anything?” I almost run into his back when he stops short. I’d been too busy scanning the surrounding area for anything that could constitute as helpful. 

“Up there?” He bends at the knee before cupping his hands, motioning for me to step forward. “What am I looking for again?” He’d been oddly specific. 

“A Simplex LD472 Pushbutton,” He rattles off smoothly sounding only slightly exaggerated. I appreciated that. A wholesale hardware warehouse. It was out of my element but I’d quickly seen the potential of volunteering for the rum. 

Carefully maneuvering the shelves, I begin to sift through the storage containers. It takes a bit since their cinched in industrial cling wrap.

“Conditional statement,” Negan says after a moment, “you were saying.”

“Oh, uh,” The partial darkness of the warehouse assists in my miscalculation. The box cutter narrowly misses my index finger, embedding itself in the palm of my hand. I barely flinch as I pull it out. “It’s a relationship of logical necessity, you know.”

“Logical necessity,” He repeats. “Like if X happens, then Y follows?”

Humming in agreement, I continue, a genuine smile playing on my lips for the first time in weeks. “Every conditional statement has two parts to it: the ‘sufficient’ and ‘necessary’ term.”

“The difference?” His voice follows as I military crawl to the next shelving unit.

“Well, the sufficient term is the part that follows the _if,_ they have another name for it: the _trigger_. As it precipitates the occurrence or truth of something else.” I say reciting the sentence from the book, word for word.

“And the necessary term is the result,” He deduces. 

“Exactly,” Finally, someone understood. “You wanted to know why I’m so quiet? I’ve been thinking a lot about the trigger. What precedes the before…the trigger’s _trigger_.”

Before he can respond, I let out a shriek of success. “I think I found it.”

“A lock?” I ask a moment later, dropping the heavy package into his waiting arms. 

“Yeah, Margie’s been riding my ass.” The librarian. “Said someone’s been robbing the library. The old hag is losing her mind.”

“Really?” I mumble. “I had no idea.“

* * *

Forty-five days.

He’d told me he loved me after forty-five days. He didn’t deserve to feel love.

Not when Maybelle couldn’t.

I’d had to say it back, there was no way around it. It’d burned like acid on my tongue.

“You alright, baby?” 

Baby. How generic. 

Nothing more than a pre-packaged term of endearment.

“I’m fine,” I assure him.

“You haven’t touched your corn.” I slide it across the table with a weak grin. When I’m near him it feels all wrong. It’s like my skin is two sizes too small and I’m constantly walking a tightrope. 

“You can have it, baby,” I say, getting up from the table where we’re seated. “I’ve got guard duty.” I leave him with a fleeting kiss. 

Nothing but canned affection. 

The Sanctuary couldn’t be home, it’d never be when Dane was there openly roaming the halls. 

The sooner he was gone, the sooner I could stop living in the woods. 

The beginning of winter nips at my face as I dredge further into the dark shadows. Like clockwork, my skin loosens and I regain my balance.

When I’m close enough to the point where I can see my little camp, I begin to strip. If Dane’s words hadn’t spurred my plan along, the impending weather would have. 

Leaving the discarded garments on a tree, I get to work in no time, lighting a fire so that I can easily see the pages of the book on the fold out table before me.

It’s a shame I don’t notice him before it’s too late.

“What the _fuck_ are you doing?” The thunderous roar of Negan’s voice cuts through my carefully constructed concentration. I jump back, startled from my workstation and the red powder spills all over my work shirt. 

“Shit, Negan. It’s not what it seems,” I begin to protest in vain. 

“Are you making meth?” He demands, thundering forward like a bull. Before he can get any further, I put myself in his path and he stops short. “The Sanctuary has a strict ‘no drug’ policy.”

I’d known this from the very beginning. 

Briefly my eyes sweep my workstation. It looks bad, I know. The syringes, the beakers. It’s all so bad.

He looks murderous, grasping me by the front of my stained t-shirt before demanding, “Have you been stealing from the factory?”

I shouldn’t look so offended but I do. “Of course not. I found all these things on my own time. I’d never rob our own people, Negan, you know that.” 

There wasn’t a rule against hoarding as a Savior. One of Negan’s many rules: You earn what you take. 

He relaxes slightly at the omission, before renewing his grip, “Clean this shit up. Get. Rid. Of. It. Now!” He barks out.

“I can’t,” I utter just as quietly. 

“What the _shit_ did you just say, Pen? And say it slowly, because I must’ve not  heard you right the first time.” He waits patiently and quietly. A ticking time bomb personified. 

I want—in _raw_ need for him to leave. Leave me to finish this, so that I can finally be done with this part of my past. Clenching my eyes shut, I desperately will away his presence.

“Fine,” His grip vanishes, “I’ll do it my- _fucking_ -self.”

“Dane killed my sister!” Lucille misses the workstation by mere centimeters. He moves to swing again. “Please, Negan. I’ll tell you everything.” I beg.

The tip of Lucille pushes into my shoulder blade. “Move.”

I take a seat and he surpasses the numerous vacant spots by the fire, taking the one directly beside me. His warmth lightly penetrates the exposed skin of my arm as he settles down with a heavy sigh, leaning forward to rest his chin on Lucille. “Penelope, I’m waiting.”

“It was before I came to the factory. I had a sister,” Delving into the pockets of my overalls, I smooth the wrinkles of the Polaroid before passing it to him, “her name was Maybelle. Maybelle-June. My mother loved long names…thought they were more romantic.” I finish in a voice a little above a whisper.

I watch as he slowly takes in her dimpled face, eyes scrunched tight, and face pointed towards the sunbeams. The light of the fire dances across her features, illuminating her face in a golden hue.

Innocence, her name was Maybelle.

“How did she die?” He asks after a moment. From his perspective, he can see how broken I am. There will be some scars that won’t heal. He wishes that he’d said something sooner. He’d only followed me here on a hunch.

“She’d been sick for a few days. It’d gotten colder and we didn’t have enough layers.” I shrug blearily, her image now warped by my tears. I wipe them away feverishly, dragging the blunt edge of my fingernail just beneath my under-eye to center my being. “We’d walked for so long, Negan. I’d finally found a convenience store and it was like the heavens had opened up. I’d never been religious but Maybelle swore that it was God himself.”

“And Dane?”

“He was so strung out. Meth.” I don’t recognize the bitter laugh that falls from my dry lips.

“Are you sure?”

“He must’ve gotten help or something,” I answer his unspoken question. “But it’s him. Same tattoo of a sparrow on his neck.”

“Shit,” He curses. His fingers clutch the picture in his hand just a little tighter. Maybelle’s face becomes just a little distorted. 

“I begged him. I pleaded with him to just leave me with some of the medication. But he laughed in my face, told me his stash was low.”

It suddenly dawns on him. 

“Jesus fuck,” He breathes, “you’re dating your sister’s killer? What are you going to do, fake a goddamn overdose? Seems like a lot of trouble to go through…” He motions to my meth lab.

“Everything I’ve done has been for her, Negan.” He doesn’t look convinced. “What killed Lucille?” I’d originally intended the deliverance of the question to be a bit smoother. He clams up instantly. “I wondered from the minute I saw you with her. It’s in the way you care for that bat. Sister?” I hedge on.

He eyes me warily. “Wife. Cancer.”

I fall to my knees before him. I’m not above begging. I can’t seem to care how this looks. All wide-eyed and fragile, it’d only take one blow for me to shatter. But he’d have to throw the first punch. “Imagine for a moment…cancer personified.” His eyes darken as he gazes back at me, listening intently to every word. They flicker to my lips for a minute before pinning me with their intensity once more. “Imagine this: a smug son of a bitch that killed your wife. Are you doing it?”

He closes his eyes. “Yeah, I am.”

“Now imagine he just waltzes past the front gate of the factory. Just when you were starting to feel real again. All that progress…it just vanishes. He’s there. Day in and day out—taunting you. He doesn’t even remember what he did to us. He just left you there to suffer, to clean up his mess. Wouldn’t you want to make him suffer the exact same way she did?” I whisper to him between sharpened breaths.

He’s quite for a long time, so long, I begin to lose hope. 

Suddenly, he leans forward, cupping the back of my neck to place a gentle kiss on my forehead. He wipes the tears from his eyes before shrugging off his leather jacket. “You’re gon’a need help getting rid of the body.” 


End file.
